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Virtual Cross-Dressing

 
  

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miss wonderstarr
17:10 / 07.03.06
Transferred from the Boys-talk-about-Girls thread:

Me:
Sorry to ask something on a new topic, but related I hope to this thread.

The talk about how people responded to "Ganesha" and so on made me think for a moment about starting a "female" persona on Barbelith. Then I considered these issues:

-- would it be "female-identified", or does that mean something more? ie. can you be female-identified just by saying on a forum "I'm a woman" or by letting people believe you are female, or does it mean you identify as female in real life?

-- would it be unethical in any way for me to pretend to be female on Barbelith? Would I be misleading people if, for instance, people took my female-ID posts as evidence that new female members of Barbelith were becoming more openly assertive and confident since the Feminism and Women-Only threads? Would it be unethical of me to take on a female ID because I wanted to post on the Women-Only thread?

-- would it be a laudable experiment in gender roles and people's reactions to them, and in exploring different gendered experience, or different aspects of self, for me to take on this role for a while and then reveal it was I, kovacs? Or would that be trolling in a bad way, and bannable or open to condemnation? Would people feel justifiably hurt and deceived, or should they welcome the experience of having their perceptions about gender tested through my experiment?

------
seaglass:

Hmm, well, I just re-read that and inserted 'black' wherever you said 'female' to check out the feel of the persona idea. It didn't feel very comfortable at all.

------

Haus:

Well, it's a non-point, in a way, because you'd be breaking the board rules by having a spare suit, but other than that... hmmm. It's interesting. As you noted, the problem is that you can't but alter the experiment by being in it. Your classic example here is Sanford Lewin.

OTOH, they are called fiction suits - it's possible that one could experiment with an identity at odds with one's real-world gender identity without that being in itself an act in bad faith...

------

Alex's Grandma:

Yeah, it seems as if the previous cross-gender posting experiments were more inadvertent somehow - I think that yours could be interesting, but I think it could also, and more likely, go badly awry.

For the record, and though I doubt of it's much relevance, my Barbelith experience has been almost exactly the same as my grandson's was - nobody's treated me any differently.
-------

me:

Oh, I didn't know 2 suits was against rules. I have participated in another forum as a female-identifying persona, as a kind of experiment for myself in "passing" and a work of fictional character-building (as she is partly created through interaction with others... a process interestingly different from creating and writing a character on your own, in a work of fiction). As a teenager I often played female characters in RPGs, and as a mostly-unpublished fiction writer I've often found it an interesting challenge to write convincing female characters, particularly in the first person.

So, I feel there's room for it to be a perfectly valid creative experiment. I think you've said, Haus, that your persona here is not exactly the real-person who is behind "Haus" -- just as the real Bette Davis and Howard Hawks are (were) not their public personae or films, and I'm not really precisely like "kovacs".

It's not so much of a step, perhaps, from me playing "kovacs" as an aspect of myself here, to me playing (for instance) "Adeline Apostrophe"... does it make so much difference that kovacs is assumed to have a cock?

If I dumped kovacs, and started up Adeline, would that be... "OK"? (NB. I wouldn't really call her Adeline.)

-------

alas:

kovacs: I think it's fine for you or anyone else to take on a female-sounding name as an experiment. Maybe I'm old school, but I'd urge you to behave as you normally do, don't overtly "lie" about your gender or seek to deliberately deceive anyone, but it's certainly ok to mask your gender for awhile and see what happens. That kind of experimentation is part of the culture of a message board, and people do it for all kinds of reasons.
------
 
 
Ganesh
17:15 / 07.03.06
I think I'd actually be more interested in the reaction if one were to attempt such an experiment on TheMoonOnline...
 
 
miss wonderstarr
17:40 / 07.03.06
I think I'd actually be more interested in the reaction if one were to attempt such an experiment on TheMoonOnline...

It has certainly been done. People (well... straight men)responded indignantly at being messed around by a regular man who was adopting a flirty, seductive female persona. (Interestingly, that same white, male contributor also pretended to be a black man, and posted up a picture of himself as such.)

But right now I think TMO would appreciate any distraction, invention and creative intervention.
 
 
Jack Vincennes
20:14 / 07.03.06
kovacs, I'd be interested in how you felt reactions to you changed (if indeed they do) if you took on a female / female-sounding suit*. All the current talk about how women are recieved on Barbelith has made me think about the extent to which I have (consciously or otherwise) presented as male or at least not corrected people who assumed I was male since joining the board, and I'd like to know if you found that reactions to you changed at all from the opposite perspective.

Can I ask why you'd want to present as female specifically on Barbelith? You say that I have participated in another forum as a female-identifying persona, as a kind of experiment for myself in "passing" and a work of fictional character-building, so are the reasons for wanting to do that here the same?

*I'm really sorry, I've been looking at this for ages and I just can't make the tense of this sentence right.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
20:43 / 07.03.06
Hmmm, Kovacs, we must talk sometime... ;-) I don't pretend on Barbelith, somewhat pointless as so many people know me IRL, but it's interesting what happens when someone who doesn't know me comes across my suit name, whether my suitname just encourages them to read me as female.
 
 
Sniv
21:07 / 07.03.06
I always thought you were female, Our Lady. I'm not sure if that made me respond differently or not, but I certainly got a shock when I saw a pic of you and you were all beardy. On this issue though, you do have a female-sounding suit - has it ever been mentioned as a problem, or do most of the regulars know you're male?

I think the same would go for you, Kovacs, if you changed to a female-sounging suit. We'd know it was you for a while, but I guess any newbs would take you at face-value. I think, if nothing else, it would be an interesting creative experiment for finding an authentic voice, and building a character. I say go for it.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
21:44 / 07.03.06
Thanks for these interesting and positive replies -- though disagreement is of course also welcome. I thought Jack was a fellow for some time, and thought Our Lady was female until just now.

kovacs, I'd be interested in how you felt reactions to you changed (if indeed they do) if you took on a female / female-sounding suit*. All the current talk about how women are recieved on Barbelith has made me think about the extent to which I have (consciously or otherwise) presented as male or at least not corrected people who assumed I was male since joining the board, and I'd like to know if you found that reactions to you changed at all from the opposite perspective.

Well, I think the only board I have presented on as female is Handbag.com, which is a female-oriented portal. Men are welcome to post, so I wasn't trying to slip under the net, but they are responded to differently -- flirted with, or treated as potential perverts, and sometimes their motivation in being on the board at all is challenged (irrelevantly I think) when men get into a debate on there with women. For instance, if a man was arguing that "Just Like Heaven" was a vacuous film, a woman might pull out the response "what are you doing on here anyway, it's called Handbag... are you gay or desperate to pull or what."

I suppose I adopted a female persona on there for 3 reasons
- experiment in writing and thinking
- latent tranny mentality and fascination with "becoming"/being treated as a member of the opposite sex (I am simplifying complex reasons that I'd find challenging to pin down exactly)
- a feeling that it would make it easier for me to become part of the community.

So, a deception I suppose but not meant as a malicious trick.

In answer to your question, I think there were differences in how I was treated, and how I behaved. (I have posted there as "kovacs" too, and as male personae whom I made no attempt to disguise as other than "kovacs" under a different male name.)

For example -- from memory:

-- I was more apologetic and tentative. This was to a large extent shaped by my environment, as most of the women (female-presenting people I mean) on Handbag behave that way, prefacing disagreement with "I'm probably being stupid but" and ending it with "sorry if I've offended :blush smiley:". A lot of "sorry this is so long" at the start, "sorry I really rambled" at the end. I expect my persona was formed by that, partly because I was adopting the community behaviour and partly because I would have stood out as rude and too forthright if I didn't. (NB this is not a forum quite like Barbelith, and I'd say a lot of women on there are... "girly", with fairy avatars, tickers to their next holiday and so on. I'm sure there is a more proper way to say "girly", eg. they enjoy a certain form of behaviour and identity coded as "feminine", but you probably get what I mean.)

-- My jokes went down more of a storm. Maybe because, as has been suggested on one of these gender threads, we have different expectations of female humour, the community didn't expect a woman to be "funny like a boy". I had people saying "you're so funny", and appreciative lols, which encouraged me to carry on that kind of funny. I felt I was sparkly and witty, because I was treated that way.

-- Maybe as a combination of the relatively non-confrontational style, and my emergent reputation as a funny-girl, a character formed whereby I became quite ditsy. This may also reflect kind of badly on the types of behaviour I (semi-consciously) see as available to a female persona, but that's how it happened, in that community. I became someone who pretended to deliberately misunderstand things to get a laugh, or reported stupid things she'd just done like accidentally saying "lots of love" at the end of a phone call to my manager (I realise I'm mixing up she and my. Also, that kind of Lisa Kudrow behaviour doesn't really work with the sparkly wryness. Maybe one evolved from the other, I don't quite remember.)

Like I say, I realise some of the way the character turned out is a reflection of how I must see young women's roles and accepted behaviour. Some of it is down to the way the community saw that, and responded to me. Much of this behaviour, though, is there in my posts under this name -- mock-innocence, gags (they don't really get noticed on here I think), carefully polite apology, a sometimes prissy, uptight style and, mostly, attempts at good manners.

As an important sidenote, I have two long-running personae on The Moon Online board. One is kovacs; the other is like an idiot savant (I hope that isn't an informal term for autistic; that isn't how I mean it) childlike character, called Steerpike. So I have also had two personae over like 4-5 years, both male, both allowing and enabling different aspects of me. I wouldn't post steerpikey stuff under kovacs, or vice versa.

Ironically, on Handbag, I got caught up in a wide-ranging debate and had to pull out the ditsy stops to really hammer out an argument. As such, I revealed myself, inevitably, through my language and manner, as "kovacs". And, as such, some people were pissed off about me taking on a role. The word "fictionsuit", which I used in my defence, is still spat at me on other boards. I am still perma-banned from Handbag under any name.


Can I ask why you'd want to present as female specifically on Barbelith? You say that "I have participated in another forum as a female-identifying persona, as a kind of experiment for myself in 'passing' and a work of fictional character-building," so are the reasons for wanting to do that here the same?


When I first asked the question, it was just objective curiosity. By my second big post on this thread, I was remembering that I used to actually have fun "being" a "girl". It was liberating in some ways to let out another side of oneself. I was different, just as the Steerpike character is different from kovacs.

I suppose it's like, in real life it's fun to dress up or do your hair differently, and realise you walk differently, talk differently, are treated differently because of how you present. I do that as a man, certainly. Maleness gives opportunities for masquerade... just fewer of them.

But on here, I have one name and that name, even though I don't post much, becomes a "brand". Longer-standing posters have an even more fixed brand identity. So, with one name, there is I think less opportunity for play in presenting than one actually has in real life, with clothes, hair, posture, make-up and so on.
 
 
*
22:32 / 07.03.06
However, I think it's probably true to say that as an ex-trans, a lapsed trans, a repressed transman,

Did you mean to say that? Here's why I ask: A transman is a female to male trans person who identifies himself as a man— i.e. myself. A male-to-female trans person who identifies as a woman is a transwoman. The point is to place the emphasis on the identity, not on the gender assignment at birth. I just really wanted to clear that up.

I welcome your disclosure. I think I would not have a problem with you posting in your female-passing suit regardless of your identification. I see nothing wrong with crossdressing, and this seems like any other form of crossdressing— people deceive themselves, when they assume that someone with a name they take to be feminine is actually female. If you were to begin to use the suit as a way of propagating sexist stereotypes, some of the woman-identified posters here— among others— would probably take it upon themselves to have stern words with you. So avoid that.
 
 
Ganesh
22:51 / 07.03.06
Hmm. As Miss Wonderstarr (or rather, having disclosed your gender-oscillatingness), you've suddenly become considerably more interesting. Will think about this and post more later (or lloitor).
 
 
alas
23:56 / 07.03.06
First, just kind of backing up id here, I am pretty sure that "tranny" is an offensive label for many transexual/transgendered people. I'd avoid it in casual conversation.

But, second, I'm interested in this part of your narrative:

I was more apologetic and tentative. This was to a large extent shaped by my environment, as most of the women (female-presenting people I mean) on Handbag behave that way, prefacing disagreement with "I'm probably being stupid but" and ending it with "sorry if I've offended :blush smiley:". A lot of "sorry this is so long" at the start, "sorry I really rambled" at the end. I expect my persona was formed by that, partly because I was adopting the community behaviour and partly because I would have stood out as rude and too forthright if I didn't.

I am glad you said this, partly because I've been wanting to say something in response to this statement by ShadowSax in F4J: it sort of feels like i have to acknowledge some abstract struggle of women in general in order to justify my opinions of certain legislation and social problems coming from feminism. that, in itself, demonstrates the double standard we're dealing with - by presuming men have power, men then have to qualify their criticism with compassion. somehow it doesnt have to work the other way around, where critics of the fathers rights movements dont have to demonstrate compassion for fathers before criticizing specific points

If you look at the thread in question, you will, of course, see much snarkiness (if memory serves, largely snarkiness from male posters) but you'll also see repeated examples of critics of F4J saying: I actually sympathize with the goals of the F4J movement, but...

Maybe this belongs in that thread, but every time I tried to write a response to it, I can't find a way that seems to work that won't derail the conversation (it would really help if there were another representative of the F4J viewpoint on that thread; when just one person holds a view, it's even easier to make it "personal").

And this part maybe belongs in Feminism 101, but, me, I work hard to avoid being overly apologetic here, and--when I have to apologize (as I regularly do feel that should legitimately do, not just as my default, kneejerk mode which is pretty deeply engrained in me, you may or may not be surprised to learn) I try to do so in such a way that I'm not falling into this "sorry for taking up space in the world" motif, which is the undercurrent of so much of "female female" existence out there in real life, as I've experienced it, especially Midwestern US female existence.

Your whole life can become: "I realize I don't really have any right to say anything, really, and especially not anything that might be complex and take your time, and most especially not anything that might possibly offend you other people, and this is probably stupid, but..." I don't know if other women posters find themselves needing to fight this tendency, but I sure as fuck do.

Argh. So. Miss (what was yer name again?) kovacs...feel free to bring that particular bit of awareness to the table anytime it seems appropriate.

I am interested, actually, in the fight on handbag that led you to being banned, and how the dynamics of that went. But, that may just be me. If so (i.e., if no one else here expresses an interest) feel free to pm me with the gory details...
 
 
miss wonderstarr
07:45 / 08.03.06
I am interested, actually, in the fight on handbag that led you to being banned, and how the dynamics of that went.

In brief, Handbag became more explicitly corporate and gained a Communities Manager (very ironically, part of the resistance to this new admin was that he initially presented as "Modesty Blaise" -- he is half-french, first name Blaise -- and let everyone believe he was female, presumably because it would help his chances when stepping in to manage a female-dominated community). Things kicked off because the new rule was heavy-handed and inconsistent. I got engaged in discussion that required hard hitting and close analysis.

Now it might seem an unfortunate reflection on my view of women that in doing that, I revealed myself to be the same person as "kovacs". But:

a) "Rachel-Saint" on Handbag was a specific type of female persona, formed by interacting with that specific community (and trying to fit in, entertain and make friends)
b) "Steerpike", a male persona, also would not have worked for that kind of intense debate. "kovacs" is the big gun for debates.

How this name will affect that approach -- I have yet to see.
 
 
Sax
08:15 / 08.03.06
Hmm. As Miss Wonderstarr (or rather, having disclosed your gender-oscillatingness), you've suddenly become considerably more interesting.

Ganesh, you posted that out loud, you know.
 
 
Benny the Ball
09:29 / 08.03.06
Well, miss wonderstarr, I think that, as you said, as long as you are not deliberatly missleading people, then it is mroe of an experiment of the contraints of language impossed by the viewer than of a flirty play with what it's like to be a woman. Will you start to post differently? Probably, maybe as a reaction to how people post or reply to you. I have made several judgements over people's fiction suit names, in my mind I picture Ganesh as being Indian for example, with no idea of whether or not it is true, but that's beside the point. I think that I certainly have cultivated a persona on the baord, i've touched on this before, where I behave very differently here than I do, say, on the other board I visit (TMO) or in real life. It works in some sub-boards (conversation for example) but try to be a little bit more 'me' in others, when the thread calls for it.
Veering away from gender specifics for a moment, I changed my name very early on in the board, because I started on the wrong foot - and felt that the user name may carry baggage. I've stuck with BtB for ages now, but have often thought about changing it, playing with different personas etc. I'm not too sure if the look of the board when writing determines my manner, or if I think differently as BtB, or if it is just a dumbed down short hand version of myself.
How long will your name say 'formally' Kovacs? That could determine a lot with regards to perception of you.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:50 / 08.03.06
Until he changes his name again.

Well, miss wonderstarr, I think that, as you said, as long as you are not deliberatly missleading people, then it is mroe of an experiment of the contraints of language impossed by the viewer than of a flirty play with what it's like to be a woman

Well, I'm not entirely sure whether it would be so bad if it was a flirty play with what it's like to be a woman. I can see situations in which a change of suit identification would be dubious - for example, a sudden change of identity followed by a slew of posts on the women-friendly thread.

The mutability of gender online raises interesting questions of the Michigan Womynfest variety - how much experience of being a woman allows one to be treated as a woman? In the absence of female-identifying spaces, that probably becomes less of an issue...
 
 
Jack Fear
09:55 / 08.03.06
Until he changes his name again.

Nope. That little "prev." goes away entirely after Day 29 if you don't change your name on Day 28. For instance, you, Haus, don't have one...
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
09:58 / 08.03.06
Oopsy. True. Which means it's time to change again...
 
 
Jack Fear
10:23 / 08.03.06
Why? So people won't lose track of who you are? Believe me, Chief, there's nooooo danger of that...
 
 
miss wonderstarr
10:30 / 08.03.06
I wouldn't feel entitled to post on Women-Friendly Barbelith. Perhaps if I'd been received and responded to as a woman on Barbelith for a year. I don't know.

Oh hello miss wonderstarr! :-) I guess that's a reference to, "O star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright," rather than to Portishead's Wandering Star, "the masks, that the monsters wear / to feed, upon their prey," right? Actually the business with the masks sounds like Z's thing. Yes it does, Z.

As Ganesh recognised, she is a Lloigor-occupied superheroine from G. Morrison's "Zenith Phase III". He didn't mention that she is modelled (by Steve Yeowell) on Siouxie Sioux and based on, apparently, an old character called Starr of Wonderland.

Also it recalls Miss Wonderly from Maltese Falcon so has that flirty femme thing going on. I think "Miss Wonderly" was a false name in the film too, but can't remember quite.
 
 
Sax
10:43 / 08.03.06
Trust me, if people had thought you female when you first joined and posted all that Batman stuff, there would have been a lot of ruined underpants in the comics forum.
 
 
elene
10:57 / 08.03.06
Oh



Sorry. I've read the The Invisibles OK, and lots of manga, but I'm no expert.

And of course you're right, there is Miss Wonderly,

"What do you think of Wonderly?"
"I'm for her," the girl replied without hesitation.
"She's got too many names," Spade mused, "Wonderly, Leblanc, and she says the right one's O'Shaughnessy."
"I don't care if she's got all the names in the phone-book. That girl is all right, and you know it."
"I wonder." Spade blinked sleepily at Effie Perine. He chuckled. "Anyway she's given up seven hundred smacks in two days, and that's all right."
Effie Perine sat up straight and said: "Sam, if that girl's in trouble and you let her down, or take advantage of it to bleed her, I'll never forgive you, never have any respect for you, as long as I live."
Spade smiled unnaturally. Then he frowned. The frown was unnatural.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
11:00 / 08.03.06
Trust me, if people had thought you female when you first joined and posted all that Batman stuff, there would have been a lot of ruined underpants in the comics forum.

That crossed my mind too. I wonder about the ethics of that; fanboys getting off on their notion of me being a foxy minx who also knows a bit about Batman. But that would be their look-out, surely, unless I'd encouraged it.
 
 
The Falcon
11:14 / 08.03.06
This is brilliant. I was going to suggest something about Rose/Dr. Occult, but - nah, just carry on, actually.
 
 
Sniv
12:47 / 08.03.06
To open this up a little further, have any f-id'd posters tried posting as explicitly male characters? How did you find it? It'd be interesting to see if you still come up against sexist/misogynistic language (or at least, language you interpret as sexist/misogynistic) directed at you while you're in the guise of another gender.

Would a woman posting as a man adapt her style, or would she just let the name make the shift in readers' imaginations? It would be fascinating, for instance, to see people's reactions to someone like Nina if they thought she was male (I use you Nina becuase you're a high-profile, forthright and intellignt poster who happens to be a woman, it's not that I have any problems with you, honest) - would the attitudes she's come across be as prevailant, or would people that disagree with her call her misandrist names rather than misogynistic?

Considering this some more, I think the gender of your suit influences how people read you in a major way. Miss Wonderstarr, even though you've only had the name for a day, your 'voice' in my head has already changed totally. Gone is Dr Kovacs from ER (this is who you were in my head). I think I'll come back to this some more in a few weeks, once you've had time to settle in to your new skin. Are you looking forward to being treated differently?
 
 
The Falcon
12:51 / 08.03.06
ER?! John, seriously:

 
 
Sniv
13:35 / 08.03.06
Exactly. I have diseased mind. And a slight man-crush on Dr Kovacs, obviously.
 
 
grant
15:07 / 08.03.06
John has now made my head cave in. First, I had the picture of Rorshach with the Nite Owl mechanic's foam rubber breasts on, then the Lloigor Maltese Falcon thing steps in (even though I never read Zenith), and now a white jacket from the friendly hunky doctor man.

Yikes!
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:19 / 08.03.06
Miss Wonderstarr, even though you've only had the name for a day, your 'voice' in my head has already changed totally. Gone is Dr Kovacs from ER (this is who you were in my head). I think I'll come back to this some more in a few weeks, once you've had time to settle in to your new skin. Are you looking forward to being treated differently?

What's funny is, after changing my name, I felt I sat differently while typing (more upright and pursed-lips, more arch-eybrowed, fingertips doing a tight rattle.)* I suppose this isn't something uncommon to actors; establishing, sometimes without even thinking about it, a whole set of mannerisms around a character. It is also true of writing fiction that after a while, if you're succeeding, you feel what your character would do and say without thinking about it.

So I think it is more interesting initially the way I may see myself differently on here.

------
* maybe some subconscious stereotype of secretaries and telephone-operators, like Rosemary from Hong Kong Phooey. so sue me. maybe on the other hand it's just a kind of campery to get out of the system.

-----


NB it is partly because I am, as part of the process, imagining how I must present to the community, as miss wonderstarr. That is, how people who don't pay attention to the "previously" probably visualise "me", hear my voice and so on. So, that is internalised into the way miss wonderstarr presents.
 
 
*
17:06 / 08.03.06
I'm sorry about that. When I was on the "scene", the word "tranny" was widely-used as an affectionate term by transvestites for transvestites. Perhaps it's one of those things where an insult is taken within the community and emptied of offence.

Hope I'm not threadrotting, but this is cetainly my understanding of the term— many of the trans folks I know use it among themselves in solidarity. And since you've been "in the scene" I certainly don't care if you use it to describe yourself. You might want to avoid using it as a label for others until you know they're alright with it, that's all.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
18:26 / 08.03.06
That's sensible advice. I have gone well off the word myself. It sounds like an old radio or, as I suggested, a seaside act.
 
 
Loomis
19:53 / 08.03.06
Maybe as a combination of the relatively non-confrontational style, and my emergent reputation as a funny-girl, a character formed whereby I became quite ditsy. This may also reflect kind of badly on the types of behaviour I (semi-consciously) see as available to a female persona, but that's how it happened, in that community. I became someone who pretended to deliberately misunderstand things to get a laugh, or reported stupid things she'd just done

. . . . .

Like I say, I realise some of the way the character turned out is a reflection of how I must see young women's roles and accepted behaviour. Some of it is down to the way the community saw that, and responded to me.

. . . . .

What's funny is, after changing my name, I felt I sat differently while typing (more upright and pursed-lips, more arch-eybrowed, fingertips doing a tight rattle.)


I'm curious as to why you want to identify as female if your manner of doing so is to adopt a(n arguably harmful) stereotype.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
20:20 / 08.03.06
Some of those things are arguably stereotypical, but I brought them up in the interests of examining my behaviour and preconceptions. I don't have the intention of fitting a stereotype. I do think sometimes we may all find ourselves filling a social role or space that the people around us open up; sometimes we can be disappointed with ourselves for playing that role, sometimes surprised. Identities, I was suggesting, are partly formed online as in real-life by the way we're treated and responded to: a corny old example might be the kid who discovers s/he can make people laugh in class, and becomes the resident comedian. Another might be the teenaged girl who learns she is attractive to men, and starts to explore that power.

I believe I see where your challenge was coming from. It would be disappointing if I inhabited and perpetuated a stereotype. In fact, I would be quite ashamed of it (though I think that is common in cross-dressing communities, in that men adopt certain, perhaps limited and limiting, female types. But then perhaps men and women dressed in their conventional clothes also often adopt certain gendered types.)

I hope though that being self-conscious and analytical about this behaviour is a little more positive than just relishing it. I agree that to say "writing as a woman I sat up straight and became all arch" is pretty poor. But perhaps a first flush of camp has to be gotten out of the system. I don't know. I hope you will give me some time and leeway for further experiment.
 
 
alas
22:32 / 08.03.06
Hey, I hope you, miss wonderstarr, and other interested parties, will read/contribute to the femme identity thread in the headshop, where we are discussing a whole variety of things related to expressing female/feminine/femme identity. I'd be interested in your comments.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
22:51 / 08.03.06
I would like to; that thread is really pretty long and involved now, though, and demands some committed reading. I should be able to hold my own within what I think some (= Ganesh?) have called theory-bitchery, but... reading theory for me is more like work, and discussion boards are a bit more the leisure-place where I seek fun, play and creativity (or argument, which I also don't do much of at work).
 
 
miss wonderstarr
23:00 / 08.03.06
I know this thread is turning so uncomfortably (for me) into some kind of miss wonderstarr-blog, where I contribute 50% of the posts because whenever I come back I reply to the last contribution... but from my point of view, if the Femme thread rebooted a bit with direct questions or discussion points for newcomers (with references to the body of text above it) that would be useful and a way in.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
05:38 / 09.03.06
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